When we reviewed the Wii U earlier this week, we were forced to give it an “Incomplete” verdict, as we were waiting on a day-one system update that would unlock a large number of the system’s promised features. We spent a little over an hour downloading that update and a few more days tinkering with the new features it unlocked, so we can now report on how the Wii U handles some important functions aside from playing games.

The Nintendo Network experience

The Wii U represents Nintendo’s biggest push into the online space yet, and part of that push is replacing the inconvenient, frustrating, and game-specific Wii Friend Codes with a unified online infrastructure called the Nintendo Network ID. Signing up for an ID takes a few minutes and requires some very basic personal information (like an e-mail address). You can protect your ID with a password that’s required each time you use it, or set it up to log you in automatically every time you turn on the system.

Once you’re connected to the Nintendo Network, your Wii U home screen will fill up with Miis from around the world, gathering around large icons representing games and apps they’ve played. At first, this screen (known officially as WaraWara Plaza) was filled with preloaded robots from Nintendo talking excitedly about features like “System Settings.” By the next day, though, my plaza filled up with real people gathering around icons for games I owned and a few I didn’t. I can’t help but feel that Nintendo is using its plaza not just for expanded social networking, but also as a form of ad space for retail games.

Still, it’s nice feeling like part of a community of Wii U players, and I had a great time clicking around the various Miis and seeing what they had to say about each game. I encountered a lot of fan art and a lot of overzealous praise for each game, but also a few messages that were surprisingly negative about Nintendo's launch software (though not obscene... Nintendo’s filtering police seem to be doing a good job on that score). You can easily add any interesting-looking Miis you find to your local Mii Maker, or click through a specific message to find out more about your fellow players in Miiverse.

Miiverse

Enlarge/ Just one of many great bits of hand drawn fan art already filling up Miiverse.

Multiplayer mishaps

The only Wii U game I have access to that supports actual online multiplayer, rather than the Miiverse messaging functions mentioned above, is Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Playing with strangers over the Wii U was a pretty smooth experience: the game recognized my Nintendo Network ID immediately and placed me in a relatively lag-free friendly match after just a few seconds of matchmaking.

Setting up a match with a specific person is another matter. The only way to do this is to come up with an arbitrary “match code” and share it with your friend by some other means. Only if both players enter the same match code in the online menu at the same time will they be set up against each other. Hopefully this is only a one-off issue and other games will let players send friends the kind of direct match invites that gamers are used to on other gaming services.

Miiverse is probably best described as a simplified cross between Facebook and a massive, Nintendo-focused message board. There are huge content threads devoted to each game and app on the system, where people can post typed messages or hand-drawn notes. There's a system in place to flag inappropriate content, or to note content that contains spoilers (which will then have to be actively expanded to view). You can even show your approval for specific notes with a “Yeah!” that acts like Facebook's Like function.

So far, reading through these threads has felt like a more-focused, more-polite, much-less-cynical version of an average gaming message board. It has also been interesting to use the message counts as a rough gauge of the popularity of various games: Thousands more people are talking about ZombiU than the Wii U version of Ninja Gaiden 3, for instance.

These Miiverse messages can also be integrated into the games themselves. In New Super Mario Bros. U, for instance, the map screen will show selected messages other users have left after playing specific levels. The game encourages this kind of sharing by prompting you to post when you do something well (like finding all three star coins in a level, completing a level without taking damage) or do something poorly (like falling in the same pit four times in a row). The game even mixes up these prompts by occasionally asking for a rhyming couplet, or telling you to leave a message for your future self. It's like freshman-year creative writing class, but actually interesting!

Enlarge/ A Mii shares a rather impolitic message from inside Nintendo Land.

Unlike the Wii, which severely limited any potential interaction with strangers, the Wii U lets you drill down to find out more about any Miiverse user and read through their old posts and status messages (you can also find people you’ve recently played in online matches through an easily accessible list). You can propose a virtual Wii U friendship with strangers, but if you don't want to go that far, you can also simply click the “follow” button to keep up with their future message board posts in a Twitter-style "Activity Feed." It's nice that Nintendo has provided a way to keep up with interesting users without exposing yourself to random direct messages or video-chat requests from possible creeps.

Enlarge/ I don't know this guy BK, but I could respond to his call to connect with other lonely Wii U players if I wanted to.

Setting up a list of real-world friends is a bit complicated, though it's still way easier than on the Wii. If you have someone’s Nintendo Network ID, you can send them a friend request through Miiverse using the “search” function. He or she will be prompted to accept the invitation the next time they log in. You can also add friends directly through the “Friend List” page, but if you do that the Wii U won’t actually send them a message, and they'll have to enter your name manually to complete the connection. Why Nintendo decided to split this process in such a counterintuitive way is beyond me.

Enlarge/ I drew a funny face on fellow game journalist Britton Peele. Lulz.

Video chat

Nintendo has made a lot of the Wii U's ability to connect players through video using the GamePad's built-in camera and microphone, but anyone who's used Skype or the iOS FaceTime feature is unlikely to be impressed with this extra feature. The connection in my tests was pretty choppy and susceptible to video freezes and audio issues. Even when it's working perfectly, the image from the VGA camera is pretty fuzzy, especially when viewed on an HDTV. But hey, at least you can draw on the live video image with your stylus, which is fun for playing a quick game of tic-tac-toe approximately once.

Once you are connected as friends, you'll be able to see when your virtual buddy is online and what they’re playing (if they’ve decided to share that information). You can also send your Wii U friends direct messages and video chat requests, but it's unnecessarily cumbersome to do so. Instead of simply choosing a "message" option from the unified friend list, you have to load up the separate Miiverse app and open up a specific message thread from there. To start up a video chat, you similarly have to go through the video chat app rather than going right through your list of online friends. Some shortcuts from the Friends List for these kinds of common tasks would have been nice.

The Wii U also has a really annoying way of notifying you of friend activity while you're playing a game. Unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3, which pop up on-screen notifications of your friends' activity, the Wii U only blinks a small blue LED under the Home button on the GamePad. It's pretty easy to miss this subtle indicator, especially if you're staring at the TV screen rather than the GamePad screen (or using a Wii Remote to control a game).

Even if you see the light, though, you have to actively pause the game by tapping the Home button if you want to get details on the specific alert. This gets really annoying after the fifth time you pause a single Mario level just to acknowledge that, yes, that guy with the spotty Internet connection has come online yet again. You could just ignore the blinking light, of course, but then you'd risk missing an important message or video chat request. It’s an incredibly frustrating system that needs to be fixed.

74 Reader Comments

The one thing I'm concerned about with the Wii U is if some new technology is introduced between now and the release of the "next-gen" consoles that basically make the Wii U as undesireable to make games for as the Wii was for third-parties.

For anyone looking for the sidebar about Tekken mentioned in The Ugly, it's back on the first page.

I really, really hope that this private match system isn't indicative of what other online multiplayer environments will be like. I just want to play my favorite Nintendo games with something roughly equivalent to XBL. Is that really so much to ask, Reggie?

IMO the blinking light on the gamepad to notify you about friend activity is not a bad thing. It only happened a handful of times, but it'd drive me insane when I'd die in a game on my PS3 when I was getting a notification for the 5th time that someone has logged into PSN. But different strokes. I'm interested in the console but I think I'm waiting for more info on the xbox 720 and PS4 first. Maybe even get a price drop by then (doubt it but fingers crossed). I got burnt by the dreamcast in the past, even though I loved that system.

To recycle a comment I made on backward compatibility:The GameCube/Wii TEV pipeline is quite unique, nothing else processes textures and effects like it does. It might be possible to write a shader translator that can run on a modern GPU, but that isn't Nintendo's style. When they do backward compatibility they do it in hardware whenever possible - it offers 100% compatibility and you can drop it whenever you want.

It literally becomes a Wii because it's the best way to be fully compatible, in the same way the Wii didn't allow Wii controllers in GameCube games. And they even removed those GameCube controller ports on the cheaper models they sell now.

These days you can just "step into the present.", you need to "define the future". Like others are saying, once the PS4/XBox720 hit, The Wii U willl seem old and outdated. Even the graphics I have seen look to be on par or in some cases worse than existing xbox/ps games.

I've really enjoyed the update and the way Microsoft updated the 360 gives me hope this thing can really be stellar. Something they could do right now though is instead of having just game and app specific community threads, they should have some generic general topics as well for off-topic communication.

A lot of the reviews seem to be missing one key point when they say that the Wii U is around the same level as current generation systems from Sony and MS: The thing costs about TWICE as much. From my perspective, that is the real killer here. For the cost it should be outshining the current generation.

I do like the implementation of the 'leave a note' feature at certain parts of the game. That's kinda cool. (hm.... actually gives me some ideas for the future)

The one thing I'm concerned about with the Wii U is if some new technology is introduced between now and the release of the "next-gen" consoles that basically make the Wii U as undesireable to make games for as the Wii was for third-parties.

That has already happened. If I'm not mistaken Unreal Engine 4 will not run on the Wii U, so it may well be that the Nintendo console relegated as an afterthought when it comes to multiplatform games.

A lot of the reviews seem to be missing one key point when they say that the Wii U is around the same level as current generation systems from Sony and MS: The thing costs about TWICE as much. From my perspective, that is the real killer here. For the cost it should be outshining the current generation.

I do like the implementation of the 'leave a note' feature at certain parts of the game. That's kinda cool. (hm.... actually gives me some ideas for the future)

I guess it costs twice as much as the current generation because Nintendo doesn't take much of a loss for each console sold.

MS and Sony bleed money for a long while with their consoles.

I'd love if Nintendo would sell the Wii U for a loss and make it more affordable, but the price is not that outrageous.

The one thing I'm concerned about with the Wii U is if some new technology is introduced between now and the release of the "next-gen" consoles that basically make the Wii U as undesireable to make games for as the Wii was for third-parties.

That has already happened. If I'm not mistaken Unreal Engine 4 will not run on the Wii U, so it may well be that the Nintendo console relegated as an afterthought when it comes to multiplatform games.

UE4 would run on it. Epic just says they won't support it at this point.

The other two systems are rumored to have GPUs very similar to the performance of the one inside the Wii U.

These days you can just "step into the present.", you need to "define the future". Like others are saying, once the PS4/XBox720 hit, The Wii U willl seem old and outdated. Even the graphics I have seen look to be on par or in some cases worse than existing xbox/ps games.

Historically, launch titles just scratch the surface of a system's capability. Early third party ports are guaranteed to be behind the curve, as evidenced by ZombiU. The Trine 2 dev has commented on how they'll have to scale back graphics for the Xbox/PS3 versions, because they can't handle what the Wii U can. No doubt when the next versions come out they'll be more powerful than the Wii U, but that will be at least a year. Meanwhile, the WiiU is in a pretty sweet spot, it's the only new system out there, it's far more powerful than the older systems, and it's got a good amount of time to mature.

Man I really want to surf the internet. Should I use my laptop? iPad? Kindle Fire? Smartphone? Nah, let's fire up the Wii! Said nobody ever.

I had the same thought, never used the Wii browser, but if you can pause a game and fire up the browser, I can see using that to look up some game strategy or something. I can at least imagine a scenario in which it would be handy, unlike with the Wii.

Shiunbird wrote:

I'd love if Nintendo would sell the Wii U for a loss and make it more affordable, but the price is not that outrageous.

A lot of the reviews seem to be missing one key point when they say that the Wii U is around the same level as current generation systems from Sony and MS: The thing costs about TWICE as much. From my perspective, that is the real killer here. For the cost it should be outshining the current generation.

I do like the implementation of the 'leave a note' feature at certain parts of the game. That's kinda cool. (hm.... actually gives me some ideas for the future)

I guess it costs twice as much as the current generation because Nintendo doesn't take much of a loss for each console sold.

MS and Sony bleed money for a long while with their consoles.

I'd love if Nintendo would sell the Wii U for a loss and make it more affordable, but the price is not that outrageous.

Well that's the confusing part. Nintendo claimed they were actually taking a loss on the systems. Neither Sony or MS is losing money on their systems currently. Granted they've had years to go through optimizing the BOM on their systems, but the disparity in cost to have essential equal performance is very concerning imo.

Maybe the dual screen technology makes the Wii U expensive. Nintendo doesn't sell the tablet-controller separately at this time because it is too expensive. My guess is that the fancy controller accounts for a large part of the cost of the Wii U, which otherwise doesn't seem to be using cutting edge tech.

Well that's the confusing part. Nintendo claimed they were actually taking a loss on the systems. Neither Sony or MS is losing money on their systems currently. Granted they've had years to go through optimizing the BOM on their systems, but the disparity in cost to have essential equal performance is very concerning imo.

The Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as the 360/or PS3, and has 4 times as much RAM. The Wii U outputs in full 1080 HD unlike the Xbox/PS3 which output 720 scaled to 1080. To go from 720 to 1080 natively would require nearly twice the GPU horsepower. One could consider 720 to be like the old CRT resolutions of 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 --- whereas 1080 can be considered akin to 1920x1080. The GPU in the XBox/PS3 is 5+ years old, and it wasn't even top-of-the-line when it was released. Can you even imagine using a 5 year old GPU in a PC? Even those that are slow upgraders by 5 years the PC could definitely use a refresh.

So no the Wii U isn't just an Xbox/PS3 at twice the price. It's pretty much twice the machine (maybe not in the CPU department) for about twice the price. With very little optimization - games are coming over from the Xbox/PS3 realm and play at parity. Imagine when the 3rd party devs are able to optimize code for the Wii --- you might see anywheres from a 25-100% performance jump there.

A lot of the reviews seem to be missing one key point when they say that the Wii U is around the same level as current generation systems from Sony and MS: The thing costs about TWICE as much. From my perspective, that is the real killer here. For the cost it should be outshining the current generation.

I do like the implementation of the 'leave a note' feature at certain parts of the game. That's kinda cool. (hm.... actually gives me some ideas for the future)

I guess it costs twice as much as the current generation because Nintendo doesn't take much of a loss for each console sold.

MS and Sony bleed money for a long while with their consoles.

I'd love if Nintendo would sell the Wii U for a loss and make it more affordable, but the price is not that outrageous.

Well that's the confusing part. Nintendo claimed they were actually taking a loss on the systems. Neither Sony or MS is losing money on their systems currently. Granted they've had years to go through optimizing the BOM on their systems, but the disparity in cost to have essential equal performance is very concerning imo.

This is not concerning. Wii U still have plenty of new tech inside it. Over the time Nintendo will find out how to manufacture it cheaper. PS3 project broke even just 2 years ago.

Well that's the confusing part. Nintendo claimed they were actually taking a loss on the systems. Neither Sony or MS is losing money on their systems currently. Granted they've had years to go through optimizing the BOM on their systems, but the disparity in cost to have essential equal performance is very concerning imo.

The Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as the 360/or PS3, and has 4 times as much RAM. The Wii U outputs in full 1080 HD unlike the Xbox/PS3 which output 720 scaled to 1080. To go from 720 to 1080 natively would require nearly twice the GPU horsepower. One could consider 720 to be like the old CRT resolutions of 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 --- whereas 1080 can be considered akin to 1920x1080. The GPU in the XBox/PS3 is 5+ years old, and it wasn't even top-of-the-line when it was released. Can you even imagine using a 5 year old GPU in a PC? Even those that are slow upgraders by 5 years the PC could definitely use a refresh.

So no the Wii U isn't just an Xbox/PS3 at twice the price. It's pretty much twice the machine (maybe not in the CPU department) for about twice the price. With very little optimization - games are coming over from the Xbox/PS3 realm and play at parity. Imagine when the 3rd party devs are able to optimize code for the Wii --- you might see anywheres from a 25-100% performance jump there.

More RAM, but slower.Some Wii U games are 1080p native, others aren't. PS3 and 360 both also have a few (very few) 1080p native titles.

It didn't have a RJ45 plug, so I needed to go to Best Buy and get one for $20 (fortunately, the Wii Ethernet USB dongle works, since there is nothing specifically branded for the Wii U).

After spending like 2 hours updating the system, I find out that it doesn't have DLNA support, so (unless I'm missing something) there's no streaming movies/music from the home server.

I guess I don't understand how it can be even considered in the same category with the PS3 or Xbox without the features above. I really wanted it to become a great media center due to the touchscreen remote, but the Wii U is rather disappointing.

Well that's the confusing part. Nintendo claimed they were actually taking a loss on the systems. Neither Sony or MS is losing money on their systems currently. Granted they've had years to go through optimizing the BOM on their systems, but the disparity in cost to have essential equal performance is very concerning imo.

The Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as the 360/or PS3, and has 4 times as much RAM. The Wii U outputs in full 1080 HD unlike the Xbox/PS3 which output 720 scaled to 1080. To go from 720 to 1080 natively would require nearly twice the GPU horsepower. One could consider 720 to be like the old CRT resolutions of 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 --- whereas 1080 can be considered akin to 1920x1080. The GPU in the XBox/PS3 is 5+ years old, and it wasn't even top-of-the-line when it was released. Can you even imagine using a 5 year old GPU in a PC? Even those that are slow upgraders by 5 years the PC could definitely use a refresh.

So no the Wii U isn't just an Xbox/PS3 at twice the price. It's pretty much twice the machine (maybe not in the CPU department) for about twice the price. With very little optimization - games are coming over from the Xbox/PS3 realm and play at parity. Imagine when the 3rd party devs are able to optimize code for the Wii --- you might see anywheres from a 25-100% performance jump there.

More RAM, but slower.Some Wii U games are 1080p native, others aren't. PS3 and 360 both also have a few (very few) 1080p native titles.

We will have to wait. Right now, the Wii U is a new platform whereas developer already know their ways in optimize their games to the ps3/360. As such, at least for the next year, it is unlikely Wii U ports will receive any more attention than it is already required to include gamepad features, unless it is easy to get more resolution or another anti-alias pass. The question is after the introduction of the ps4/720. These machines should be more powerful but, at this point, it is hard to know if they will have enough power to make them really distinct to most users or it will be only a minor point of bravado to graphic whores.

More RAM, but slower.Some Wii U games are 1080p native, others aren't. PS3 and 360 both also have a few (very few) 1080p native titles.

System memory is slower. It's not public how large or how fast the eDRAM on the GPU and CPU is, and that can make much more of a difference.

Shannara wrote:

I picked up the WII-U basic package yesterday morning. I should counter a few myths here:2. The tablet controller has an up-to 2 hours battery life ... no more than 2 hours ... Pretty worthless for a party gaming session.3. Nintendo Land and Super Mario Brothers U requires an update to play. yes, REQUIRES.4. Every single release game could not be read by the Wii U. You needed to take out the disc, put it back in a few times before the Wii U will recognize it.

2. The tablet brightness can be adjusted and as the screen is the largest draw of power, a lower brightness will substantially increase battery life. I've used it (once fully charged) for about 2 hours at a time and the battery indicator still shows 3 out of the 4 bars; I'd estimate 4-5 hours is reasonably doable.3. Neither requires an update to play. The console will require the update to be downloaded if you are online, but you are able to play the game while the update downloads in the background (I still have a Nintendoland update sitting around that hasn't been installed).4. I have not run into this problem and this is the first I've read so this is likely not widespread.

Your other points I can't comment on. I haven't used Wii mode and I only have a deluxe system and did not read the box particularly closely in any case.

I picked up the WII-U basic package yesterday morning. I should counter a few myths here:

1. The box said the basic package comes with two tablet controllers, it came with one.2. The tablet controller has an up-to 2 hours battery life ... no more than 2 hours ... Pretty worthless for a party gaming session.3. Nintendo Land and Super Mario Brothers U requires an update to play. yes, REQUIRES.4. Every single release game could not be read by the Wii U. You needed to take out the disc, put it back in a few times before the Wii U will recognize it.5. The Wii emulator is shoddy at best. Stutters on video/scripted scenes, and does not recognize input 50% of the time.6. Netflix interface? Pathetic. This is only partially Nintendo's fault for actually approving that reject of an application. Netflix forced that same 12th century interface on the xbox as well..

Other than the above? Barely passable.

1) False, says compatible with two.2) False.3) False.4&5) If you do indeed own the console (1-3 suggests you don't) perhaps you have a bad drive - this happens on disc based systems.6) Netflix is Netflix.

I picked up the WII-U basic package yesterday morning. I should counter a few myths here:

1. The box said the basic package comes with two tablet controllers, it came with one.2. The tablet controller has an up-to 2 hours battery life ... no more than 2 hours ... Pretty worthless for a party gaming session.3. Nintendo Land and Super Mario Brothers U requires an update to play. yes, REQUIRES.4. Every single release game could not be read by the Wii U. You needed to take out the disc, put it back in a few times before the Wii U will recognize it.5. The Wii emulator is shoddy at best. Stutters on video/scripted scenes, and does not recognize input 50% of the time.6. Netflix interface? Pathetic. This is only partially Nintendo's fault for actually approving that reject of an application. Netflix forced that same 12th century interface on the xbox as well..

Other than the above? Barely passable.

I think you neglected to mention the part where it murdered your family, then spontaneously combusted and burned your house down. It's not worth addressing any of your points above.

It didn't have a RJ45 plug, so I needed to go to Best Buy and get one for $20 (fortunately, the Wii Ethernet USB dongle works, since there is nothing specifically branded for the Wii U).

After spending like 2 hours updating the system, I find out that it doesn't have DLNA support, so (unless I'm missing something) there's no streaming movies/music from the home server.

I guess I don't understand how it can be even considered in the same category with the PS3 or Xbox without the features above. I really wanted it to become a great media center due to the touchscreen remote, but the Wii U is rather disappointing.

I can understand wanting features like DLNA, but there has been no indication that it would be supported at launch. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Youtube will be sufficient for the majority of people out there--I personally have a WDTV, so it's not that I wouldn't like being able to stream my networked media, but this is first and foremost a video game console. The games are great, everything else is just gravy.

I guess I don't understand how it can be even considered in the same category with the PS3 or Xbox without the features above. I really wanted it to become a great media center due to the touchscreen remote, but the Wii U is rather disappointing.

The category is "gaming console", so I guess that's how.

Seriously though, I understand why they've strayed from strictly gaming, but expecting it to be a full media center is a bit odd. I did use Orb to stream video/music to my Wii, it worked pretty well.

The one thing I'm concerned about with the Wii U is if some new technology is introduced between now and the release of the "next-gen" consoles that basically make the Wii U as undesireable to make games for as the Wii was for third-parties.

That's my concern as well. From a system capability standpoint, it seems like some things are better (1GB shared RAM available to games, GPU), while some things are worse (half the memory bandwidth of the 360, possibly slow CPU according to developers plus it's only as big as a single core Atom at 45nm [EDIT for clarity sake, it is 30mm2 in size, and so is Atom built at 45nm, so the transistor count can very roughly be derived from that). So it does seem like the Wii again, it's a partial step forward from the last generation. Which is fine for now, but when the Nexbox and PS4 are out and getting the next Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls, will the U be able to keep up with them, or will it be relegated to first party titles plus a few lower end third party games like the Wii again?

By the way to the above, not all titles are 1080p, in fact I think the minority are. Even Nintendos first party games like Mario are in 720p right now. That doesn't point to something vastly more powerful than what we already have.

or will it be relegated to first party titles plus a few lower end third party games like the Wii again?

That is my bet. The Xbox 360 and PS3 were lightyears ahead of the last generation for each of their platforms, and with a brand new console that is maybe better in some cases but worse in others then consoles that are 4-5 years old? The NextBox and PS4 will beat the pants off of the WiiU. Microsoft already has an updated Kinect sensor in the works that will offer significantly higher resolution and 3D tracking then the current version, and I'm sure Sony is working on something too.

or will it be relegated to first party titles plus a few lower end third party games like the Wii again?

That is my bet. The Xbox 360 and PS3 were lightyears ahead of the last generation for each of their platforms, and with a brand new console that is maybe better in some cases but worse in others then consoles that are 4-5 years old? The NextBox and PS4 will beat the pants off of the WiiU. Microsoft already has an updated Kinect sensor in the works that will offer significantly higher resolution and 3D tracking then the current version, and I'm sure Sony is working on something too.

Yeah, it's hard not to be let down that hardware that is newer by 6 years is not universally better. And for a 6 year jump 2x the RAM available to games isn't that much more either, odd how the RAM is split into 1GB OS 1GB games.

it's hard not to be let down that hardware that is newer by 6 years is not universally better.

The Xbox is a pretty good example of a company learning from their hardware designs. The Xbox 1 was mostly off the shelf parts in a custom enclosure and was pretty decent for it's day. The 360 uses almost entirely custom designed silicon which in the long run has allowed them to get better performance, lower power/heat, and they can sell the hardware not at a loss (which isn't too important). Xbox Live is second to none in the online console gaming world. I remember when the Wii came out thinking "It can't even play DVDs?" and I'm getting the same "meh" reaction to the U. The tablet controller will be used well I think, but like my Wii I feel if I get a WiiU I will play the crap out of it for a while with friends, and then it will never get turned on again. I'm still buying games for my 360 and PS3. I haven't turned my Wii on in probably a year.

Yeah, it's hard not to be let down that hardware that is newer by 6 years is not universally better. And for a 6 year jump 2x the RAM available to games isn't that much more either, odd how the RAM is split into 1GB OS 1GB games.

Yeah that's quite the split. Especially for a company that never ran an OS like this before, the Wii 'OS' is just a set of libraries in NAND that games load to use certain features.

I wonder if that can't be whittled down if they decide to do a major NXE type release later in life.

Oh cool. Its good to hear that Nintendo finally has a straight-forward multiplayer experi-“Setting up a match with a specific person is another matter. The only way to do this is to come up with an arbitrary “match code” and share it with your friend by some other means. Only if both players enter the same match code in the online menu at the same time will they be set up against each other.”

I picked up the WII-U basic package yesterday morning. I should counter a few myths here:

1. The box said the basic package comes with two tablet controllers, it came with one.2. The tablet controller has an up-to 2 hours battery life ... no more than 2 hours ... Pretty worthless for a party gaming session.3. Nintendo Land and Super Mario Brothers U requires an update to play. yes, REQUIRES.4. Every single release game could not be read by the Wii U. You needed to take out the disc, put it back in a few times before the Wii U will recognize it.5. The Wii emulator is shoddy at best. Stutters on video/scripted scenes, and does not recognize input 50% of the time.6. Netflix interface? Pathetic. This is only partially Nintendo's fault for actually approving that reject of an application. Netflix forced that same 12th century interface on the xbox as well..

Other than the above? Barely passable.

1) False, says compatible with two.2) False.3) False.4&5) If you do indeed own the console (1-3 suggests you don't) perhaps you have a bad drive - this happens on disc based systems.6) Netflix is Netflix.

When you say "graphical update" when playing old Wii games on an HDTV, do you mean that the Wii U is upscaling? Or doing some anti-aliasing or HD polygons with the original textures (like the Project Dolphin emulator)?

Oh cool. Its good to hear that Nintendo finally has a straight-forward multiplayer experi-“Setting up a match with a specific person is another matter. The only way to do this is to come up with an arbitrary “match code” and share it with your friend by some other means. Only if both players enter the same match code in the online menu at the same time will they be set up against each other.”

That's the way this one game implements it. There are multiple things you can do to accomplish this on Wii U.

Uni Baby wrote:

When you say "graphical update" when playing old Wii games on an HDTV, do you mean that the Wii U is upscaling? Or doing some anti-aliasing or HD polygons with the original textures (like the Project Dolphin emulator)?

"If you’re used to the 480i image from the standard Wii composite cables, though, the resolution upgrade is quite noticeable on an HD screen."It's an upgrade if you didn't buy component cables for the original Wii, but the games will only be 480p on Wii U (or Wii with component).

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.